The Crime Scene
by kyrdwyn
Summary: The CSI guys on a night out


Title: The Crime Scene

Author: kyrdwyn

Summary: The CSI guys on a night out.

Spoilers: None

Rating: PG

A/N: Thanks to beta's Tayla and Jordyn

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            Some odd quirk in scheduling had given the three male CSIs the same night off.  Catherine and Sara had called it a conspiracy, but good-naturedly accepted it.  Besides, a few of the day shift had volunteered to help out - looking for a little overtime. 

            Nick and Warrick had bullied Grissom into going out with them.  He'd planned on staying home and catching up on some reading - but they wouldn't take no for an answer.  There was a new bar/restaurant that they wanted to check out, and they wanted him to come with them.

            Nick pulled his SUV into a parking spot just down the street from the building.  This bar was off the Strip, isolated away from a lot of the neon of downtown Vegas.  As the three men walked to the building, they noticed that it was festooned with yellow crime scene tape.  They looked at each other, puzzled.  Then Warrick noticed something above the door and pointed it out.  The bar was called "The Crime Scene".

            Inside, more yellow tape was plastered on the walls.  The wooden floor had outlines of bodies and splotches of red paint on it.

            "Table, booth, or the bar?"

            They turned and saw a young woman in jeans and a tight top standing next to them, menus in her hands.  Her eyes were hidden by the gray ball cap with the bar logo on it, but the hair spilling out the back was ash blonde.  She gave them an engaging grin.

            "Booth," Warrick said.

            "Right this way," she said as she began weaving through the tables and people to a booth on the side.  "Here work for ya?"

            Nick grinned at her.  "It's great."  He slipped into the booth, Warrick following.  Grissom sat down on the other side.  As he did, he noticed the young woman had a photo ID case with ID attached to her jeans.  He didn't get a good look at it as she was handing out the menus and talking.

            "Jenna's going to be your server tonight.  Enjoy your meal."  She walked back toward the front of the restaurant.  Nick whistled appreciatively at the sway in her hips.  Warrick shook his head and opened his menu.  Grissom did the same, raising his eyebrows at the menu choices.  While the descriptions were perfectly normal, the names of the dishes weren't - they were all crime scene related.

            "Which one of you suggested this place?" he asked.

            "He did," they both said in unison.

            Grissom shook his head, then looked up as something caught his eye.  Another woman, this time in tight black pants and a sleeveless blue sweater was heading their way.  Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had tied a strip of the crime scene tape into a bow around it.  She, too, had the photo ID and case attached to her waist.  Glancing around, Grissom noticed that all the serving people did, and across the room he could just make out the ID cases around the necks of the bartenders.

            "Hi, I'm Jenna, I'm your server this evening."  The young woman had reached their table and was placing napkins in front of each of them.  "Can I get you gentleman something to drink?"

            They all ordered beers, and she smiled.  "Great, I'll give you a few more minutes to look over the menus and be right back to answer any questions."  This time Grissom was the one watching her walk off.  He noticed a few strands of gray hair mixed in with the brown.

            "Hey Gris, stop staring."  Nick said with a grin.

            He returned his attention back to the table.  "Sorry."

            "Don't blame you, she was cute."

            He frowned at Nick.  "So why are we here?"

            "One of the guys in Homicide told me we ought to check this place out - said it was right up our alley.  Guess he wasn't kidding."

            "I wonder how they managed to get all this tape and this stuff," Warrick asked, referring to the pictures and the various implements of the CSI trade that were on the walls.

            "Comes from the owners being former crime scene guys."  Jenna's voice startled the three men.  She smiled as she set their beers down in front of them.  "When they retired they decided to open a theme place.  Figured it worked for movies and music."  She gave them a quick grin.  "So, any questions?"

            Nick started asking her about the chicken fried steak.  Grissom leaned forward, ostensibly to study his menu, but he was really stealing glances at the woman's ID.  Casually, she pulled the case out and handed it to him.  He took it with a startled expression.  She winked at him and started writing down Nick's order.

            She was as pretty in her picture as she was in real life.  At the top of the ID was the bar's logo, with "Las Vegas, NV" underneath it.  He looked at the information listed on the card and gave a small smile.  While the ID might look official, the information was anything but.

Name: Jenna (last name classified)

DOB: Sometime after the first millennium

Rank: Supervisor (too many headaches, not enough pay)

Specialty: Bugs (as in Bunny)

            He looked up to find Jenna grinning at him.  He realized both Warrick and Nick had ordered and she was waiting for him.  He glanced over the menu and gave her his order.  She jotted it down in her notebook, and then smiled again.

            "You're a cop, aren't you?"

            He raised his eyebrow.  Nick and Warrick smiled.  "Actually, we're crime scene investigators ourselves, but how'd you guess?"  Nick said.

            Jenna took her ID back from Grissom and slipped it back into place.  "Only cops want to see the ID cards.  Everyone else just thinks they're part of the theme.  I'll have your orders out as soon as possible."  She winked at Grissom again and walked off.

            Warrick chuckled, "I think she likes you, Gris."

            Jenna headed back into the employee area, punching the orders into the computer.   She was still grinning - she couldn't help it.  The gentleman who had been so intrigued by her ID was a cute one with his salt and pepper hair and blue eyes.  She wondered what he thought about the restaurant.  

            Jackie, the hostess for the evening, came into the area, peering over Jenna's shoulder.  "So, what did Table 28 order?"

            Jenna responded without turning. "Which one?"  

            Jackie laughed.  "Tall, dark hair, great smile."

            "Again I ask, which one?"  She got a playful punch from Jackie.

            "The one that Rachel wouldn't be interested it," she said, referring to the head bartender.

            "Who wouldn't I be interested in?"

            Jackie and Jenna turned to smile at the other "supervisor" on this shift.  Rachel was a striking black woman dressed in jeans and a black top, her hair pulled back into a bun with a black scrunchie.  Her brown eyes were twinkling, "And does this discussion have anything to do with the hot guys at Table 28?"

            Jenna laughed.  "Yes, it does.  Jackie wanted to know what they ordered."

            "Well, I wanted to know what they like, maybe see if I can whip up something special for dessert.  Like, maybe, me," she said with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

            Rachel shook her head, "Girl, you are so bad - and you don't even know if they're cops or not."

            Jenna grinned. "They're CSIs."

            "Oh my - how did you find that out so quickly?"

            "One of them was highly interested in my ID."

            Rachel shook her head, "Cute men and CSIs.  Think we've got a shot?  Any rings?"

            "Nope.  At least - not on the finger where it matters."

            The three girls stood there smiling.  Finally Rachel shook her head, "Well, we better stop fantasizing and get back to work."

            Grissom, Nick, and Warrick were discussing the basketball playoffs when Jenna came back with their meals.  She carefully set each plate down, warning them that they were hot.  

            "Can I get you anything else?"

            Grissom bit back the uncharacteristic response that came to mind  - asking for her phone number - and just shook his head.  She smiled at them and walked away.  Was it just his imagination, or did she glance at him longer than the others?

            "I'm telling you, Grissom, she digs you.  You ought to see what time she gets off work," Nick said as he dug into his dinner.

"Come on, Nick, leave him … alone…." Warrick didn't finish his sentence as he noticed the pretty bartender making her way across the floor to the hostess stand.  Nick caught Grissom's eye and the two shared a silent laugh.

            By unspoken consent, the men avoided discussing work - or at least cases.  Talking about the items on the walls meant talking about work.  They all agreed that Catherine and Sara would probably get a kick out of this place.  

            A waitress other than Jenna cleared the table.  Glancing at her ID, Grissom noticed that her rank was Field Investigator.  He guessed that was the designation for a regular waitress.  He wondered where Jenna was.  

            "So, Nick, you going to ask the hostess for her phone number?" Warrick asked.

            "Only if you ask the bartender," he said with a challenging gleam in his eyes.  "Care to make it three for three, Gris?

            He shook his head, "You two go on."

            "Aww, come on Gris, live a little."

            Before he could respond to Nick's cajoling, Jenna reappeared at their table, along with the hostess and the bartender.  Each woman was carrying a plate.

            "Specialty of the house, for you CSIs," Jenna announced, setting the plate down in front of Grissom.  The hostess leaned over to set hers in front of Nick, winking at him.  The bartender did the same with Warrick.  They took off, and Jenna stayed.  "Can I get you some coffee?"

            They all nodded, and she turned to leave, winking at Grissom again.

            "Whoa," Warrick said, "They go all out."  He was looking at his dessert.  On the plate was a human shaped piece of chocolate cake.  Oozing out of the chest area was a red sauce.  Nick dipped a tine of his fork in and tried it.

            "Raspberry."

            Surrounding the "body" in a circle were yellow strings - crime scene tape, apparently.  The entire plate was dusted with chocolate so finely ground it resembled fingerprint powder.  Grissom picked up part of the "tape" and bit into it.  "Hm.  Kinda like gummy worms.  Whoever came up with this is pretty creative."  

            Jenna came back with their coffee, setting them down and hurrying away to respond to another table's summons.  The three men finished their desserts and sat nursing their coffees, enjoying the time away from the lab.

            Another waitress dropped off their check.  As they were dividing it up, they noticed that there were notes at the bottom.  The bartender and the hostess had written their names and phone numbers.  Nick and Warrick quickly tore off their respective numbers and tucked them away in their wallets.  Grissom tried not to be disappointed that Jenna hadn't left her number.

            They passed Jenna on their way out.  She was taking down the order of another table.  She waved at them.  They waved back.  The hostess - Jackie - winked at Nick as she wished them a good evening.

            Nick dropped Grissom off at his town home, he and Warrick still grinning over the actions of the ladies that had caught their eyes.  Grissom tried to get some reading done, but he kept thinking about Jenna, and the way she had looked at him.  Frankly, he was attracted to her.  Maybe he should have asked for her phone number, but it had been so long since he had done something like that.

            He finally gave up trying to read when he realized it was one in the morning and he was still on the same page where he'd started.  Sighing, he got out of bed and pulled on slacks and a shirt, thinking he'd go for a drive.  He wasn't surprised to find himself outside The Crime Scene.  He noticed the bar was still open, so he went in.  He didn't see Jenna as he sat down at the bar.

            "Hey - you were in here earlier, weren't you?"

            He looked up into the eyes of the bartender - Rachel - that had caught Warrick's eye.  "Yeah, I was."

            "I thought so," she said with a smile.  "So what can I get you?"

            "A beer, thanks."  She handed him a bottle and a glass and moved off down the bar to another customer.  He poured the beer and turned around to study the building in a way he hadn't been able to before.  It really was a fascinating place.

            Rachel managed to slip away from the bar and headed back into the employee area, where Jenna was punching out on the computer, her shift over.  

            "Girl, that guy you had your eye on earlier is back!"

            Jenna looked up, "Huh?"

            Rachel rolled her eyes in disgust and grabbed Jenna's hand, dragging her to the door.  She pointed.  "There, at the bar, from Table 28."

            Jenna looked and saw him.  He was sipping at a beer, looking around the bar.  Her heart gave a little flip.  She'd been too shy to jot down her phone number when Jackie and Rachel had.  She'd had Andrea deliver the check because she hadn't wanted him to ask why she hadn't.

            "If you don't go talk to him, I'm going to ask him for his number and tell him it's for you," Rachel threatened.

            "You wouldn't!"

            "Wanna bet?" she said with a challenging gleam in her eye.

            Jenna laughed.  Rachel would.  "Okay!  Uncle!  I give!"

            "Good."  Rachel headed back to the bar.  Jenna stuck her notepad and ID card into her locker and pulled out her purse.  Taking a deep breath, she headed into the bar area.

            "Is this seat taken?"

            He turned at the sound of her voice to find her standing next to him, a shy smile on her face.  "No, it's not.  Please."

            She settled herself onto the stool and Rachel brought her a glass of iced tea.  She looked over at him, and he felt suddenly shy.  He noticed she looked like she wasn't sure what to say as well.  Then he realized that while he knew her name, she didn't know his.

            "I'm Gil."

            She smiled at him again - something she did often.  "I'm Jenna, but you knew that.  And I'm a waitress and you're a CSI.  So much for small talk, huh?"

            He laughed.  "Oh, I think there are still a few topics left.  Like when exactly is 'sometime after the first millennium'?"

            Jenna blushed.  "Farther back than I care to admit some days."

            "I can understand that," he said quietly, having felt that way himself at times.

            They sat there talking.  He was curious about the bar and Jenna answered his questions with a lot of smiles and funny stories.  She asked him questions about his job - and a few about Nick and Warrick.  "Just so I can harass Jackie and Rachel," she said.

            Rachel finally came over to tell them that the bar was closing.  Jenna reluctantly stood up, as did Grissom.

            "Can I give you a ride home?" he asked, loathe to end their evening.

            "Sure," Jenna answered, "just let me tell Rachel - she's my usual ride."  He waited for her as she told the other woman, who gave her a shove back in Grissom's direction.  Jenna was laughing as she came back.

            "Quite some friends you've got," he remarked as they crossed the parking lot to his Tahoe.  "Not afraid to be bold."  He saw her blush in the parking lot lights.  "Can I ask why you didn't leave your phone number?"

            She shrugged, "I didn't want to seem too forward."

            "You wouldn't have been."

            She looked at him as he opened the car door for her.  She felt like she could drown in his blue eyes.  Finally she looked away and got into the car.  He shut the door and got in on the driver's side.

            "So, where to?"

            She shrugged.  "Anywhere.  I don't want to go home yet."

            "It's after two in the morning."

            "And I won't get to sleep until six - trust me on this," she said with a shrug.  "Dangers of working nights."

            He laughed.  "I work nights myself."

            "Really?  Slow night tonight?"

            "Nope, night off."

            "Good, glad they let you out every once in a while."  He heard the bitterness in her tone and glanced at her.  "Sorry - my ex-boyfriend was a cop - he never got a night off - or at least that what he told me.  He spend his nights off with one of his younger colleagues, investigating each other."

            "Ah."

            She suddenly grinned at him.  "You'd think I'd learned my lesson, but where do I work?  In a bar where a lot of cops have started to hang out."

            "Have a thing for cops?"

            She shrugged, "Rachel and Jackie do.  It's the first thing they try to get me to discover about any cute guys in my section.  They were thrilled to find out your friends were."

            "We're not cops, we're CSI's," Grissom reminded her.

            "That's close enough for those two ladies."

            "That explains the phone numbers," he said, smiling.

            "Yeah.  Me, I look for personality over job."

            "So why me?" he asked with a self-deprecating grin.

            She frowned at him, the first time he'd seen her do that.  "You really have no idea do you?"

            "About what?"

            "Yourself," she shook her head.  "You've got a face that speaks volumes, even when you're quiet.  You reveal a lot of your personality just through expression.  You're also insatiably curious about everything, but you'd rather find out things on your own rather than have people tell you the answers.  Which is why you were eyeing my ID, rather than just asking about it."

            "You're very observant."

            She shrugged, "I deal with all sorts of people in my job.  It helps to be observant - let's me know who is going to be a good employee and who isn't, which customers are going to problems and which are not."

            "So what about us?"

            "Oh, I could tell you were going to be great customers," she smiled at him when she said that.  He could see her eyes twinkling in the light of the street lamps.

            He was almost at his house before he realized he'd unconsciously driven back home.  "Oh."

            "What?"

            "Well, um, I know you said anywhere, but I don't think you really meant my house."

            Jenna laughed.  "No, but I'd be curious to see it."

            He smiled at her; relieved she didn't think he was being too presumptuous.  He pulled into his driveway and got out to open the door for her.  He unlocked the front door and let her go in first.  He flipped on the lights and awaited her reaction nervously.  She walked into his living room, looking around.

            "Let me guess," she said with amusement in her voice, "your specialty is bugs, as in insects?"

            "Yeah."

            She shook her head.  "You must have thought my ID was odd."

            "No, Bugs Bunny is perfectly normal."

            She turned to look at him.  "Thank you."

            They stood there in silence again.  Finally he spoke up.  "I'm sorry, I'm not very good at this sort of thing."

            She shook her head.  "Don't be.  I'm not complaining."  She tilted her head to one side.  "Would you mind if I asked you something that might seem forward?"

            "No."

            She stepped closer to him, "Would you kiss me?"

            He stared at her, taken aback by her question.  She just kept looking at him, her green eyes serious.  He remembered his reaction to her earlier in the evening and threw caution to the wind, stepping forward to pull her into his arms and bringing his mouth down on hers.  She kissed him back, hard.  He lifted his head and looked down at her.  She was smiling again.  He smiled back and led her over to his couch, sitting down and pulling her on top of him.  He reached up to undo the crime scene tape in her ponytail, then the ponytail itself.  He threaded his hands through her hair and pulled her head down to his to kiss her again.

*          *          *          *          *

            It was late in the afternoon when they pulled up in front of her apartment building.  She put her hand on the door, but he reached out to stop her, his hand on her arm.  "Can I see you again?" he asked hopefully, with a slight smile.

            She smiled back at him.  "I'd like that.  When?"

            "Tonight?"

            "I don't have to work…." she said thoughtfully.  "What about you?"

            "I do, but that doesn't mean we couldn't have dinner."

            "As long as we are not eating in the police station."

            He smiled. "I promise."

            "Then where and when should I meet you?"

*          *          *          *          *

            It was a slow night at the lab, so the entire team was in the break room, talking.  Nick and Warrick were telling Catherine and Sara about The Crime Scene, saying they had to check this place out.  Sara was shaking her head about the girls leaving their phone numbers on the check.

            "So, Gris, did you get a phone number?" she asked.

            He kept reading his magazine, not answering.  Nick spoke up, "No, but he could have with the way the waitress was eyeing him - like the way he eyes a new bug.  Hey, what was her name again, Gris?"

            Grissom refused to rise to the bait.  Catherine looked up to see a brunette standing hesitantly in the doorway, a visitor's pass on her jacket.  "Can I help you?" she asked.  The entire team turned to check out the newcomer.  Nick's jaw dropped and Warrick's eyes bugged out.  Grissom smiled and stood up from the table, grabbing his jacket.

            "If you need me, call.  I'm going out for dinner."  He put his arm around Jenna's shoulders and walked her down the hallway.

            Nick and Warrick looked at each other, stunned.  "How did he do that?" Warrick asked.

            "I take it that was the waitress?" Sara asked innocently.  Nick slowly nodded.

Catherine shook her head, smiling. "It's always the quiet ones."


End file.
